MasterCard publishes euro debit card for cryptovallets
Flower ensemble inspired by the mastefcard logo. Image by Hans Splinter via Flickr.com. License: Creative Commons
The credit card provider Mastercard will publish a crypto debit card nominated in Euro. Users can pay with her anywhere – but keep control of their coins and tokens.
The message is fantastic, but not yet fully verified.
So far there is no press release from Mastercard or from his partner Mercuryo. What we have is a report by CoinTelegraph. However, he is strengthened by quotes from a Mastercard employee and a tweet from Mercuryo. Therefore it is very likely that the message has a hand and foot.
And it is about: you can connect a “non-loyal crypto wallet” to a Mastercard, in order to then output the money in this wallet via the MasterCard at 100 million dealers in the euro zone.
So you have a wallet in which you continue to keep the keys for cryptocurrencies yourself – but you can still spend the money on a credit card. How should that be possible? And which wallet is meant? The answer to this is not completely new for readers of our blog.
As early as this year, payment providers such as Wirex or GNOSIS PAY have introduced a debit card for non-trusting wallets. The magic behind it lies in “Account Abstraction”, a method to make accounts on Ethereum “Smart”, namely “Smart Contracts.“After a long planning, Account Abstraction was activated in spring 2023.
Among other things, account abstraction allows it to give another smart contract the authority to deduct money from the wallet and determine expenditure limits for it. Mastercard has already used this method to connect cards to Wallets with Wirex and Gnosis, and only in August the credit card provider has unveiled a cooperation with the wallet metamask.
With today’s message, Mastercard goes one step further. Together with the payment provider Mercuryo, this concept brings users to users throughout the euro zone.
There is no official announcement from Mastercard, but Christian Rau, a high-ranking manager of the crypto and fintech department, gave CoinTelegraph a short interview. He explains that Mastercard works closely with partners to “improve the user experience of a non-loyal-like wallet” and thanks to the cooperation with Mercuryo “eliminates the traditional barriers between blockchain and conventional payments”. This should enable consumers to “issue their digital assets simply, reliably and safely wherever Mastercard is accepted”.
Sounds like a confirmation, or? As I said, details are still a little vague; So far, the official announcements from Mastercard and Mercuryo are missing. However, in view of the previous work of Mastercard, it should not be about Bitcoin Wallets, but about web3 wallets, based on Ethereum, but probably on an “L2”, a side cake or a rollup. It is unclear.
Either way: Anyone who has always dreamed of keeping their money autonomously and still being able to spend anywhere can be happy. Because the dream will soon be fulfilled.
